


if i am to bleed, let me bleed glory

by crownlessliestheking



Series: Feanorian Week 2021 [3]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Blood and Violence, Canon Compliant, Character Study, First Age, Fëanorian Week 2021, Gen, Hunting, POV Second Person, Second Kinslaying | Sack of Doriath, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 22:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30112923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking
Summary: You are Celegorm, the Fair, the hungry, the wild, and when your brothers look at you, it is not with understanding. It is rarely with understanding, now. Even in your days of innocence, you had known best of your kin the wildness that lurked within you; you, who rode in Oromë’s train with a cousin who has not yet forgiven you; you, Celegorm, who smeared blood on your arms and face, who would return crusted to the elbows with viscera of prey hunted and consumed with life still pulsing in it.You know well the taste of a heart, thick with muscle, between your teeth. You know well the gush and ooze of blood, the whisper of a swift arrow, the soft-footed silence of the hunt.And what is your life now, if not a hunt?
Series: Feanorian Week 2021 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2212536
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	if i am to bleed, let me bleed glory

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the third one for Celegorm! Psyched about it, this is different from the rest, but he's like. He's feral. My feral celery. I'm also borrowing the concept that Huan is a Maia, and not like. A super great dog.
> 
> This one is really short, but it is definitely the one I've liked the most so far!

[Day 3] Celegorm: Childhood, **Hunting** , Orome & Huan, Strength & Beauty, **Wickedness** , Love/Unrequited

* * *

You are Celegorm, once called Turcafinwë by your father, Tyelkormo by your mother, both of whom are lost to you.

You are Celegorm, the Fair, the hungry, the wild, and when your brothers look at you, it is not with understanding. It is rarely with understanding, now. Even in your days of innocence, you had known best of your kin the wildness that lurked within you; you, who rode in Oromë’s train with a cousin who has not yet forgiven you; you, Celegorm, who smeared blood on your arms and face, who would return crusted to the elbows with viscera of prey hunted and consumed if not raw then with life still pulsing in it.

You know well the taste of a heart, thick with muscle, between your teeth. You know well the gush and ooze of blood, the whisper of a swift arrow, the soft-footed silence of the hunt.

And what is your life now, if not a hunt?

A hunt finally coming to fruition. You could have told your brothers that Dior Lúthien’s son would neither yield the Silmaril nor respond to their letters.

Maedhros, you think, is a coward. He is your brother, but he is a coward, and not so because of Angband. The thought is bitter; you do not bother diluting it. You are not one for cowardice, you are one for action. Hasty, they called you, and they were wrong. The whetstone sings across your blade in a note of pure warning.

You are not a coward. Had Lúthien- fair Lúthien, good Lúthien, foolish, mortal Lúthien now- not evaded you, the Silmaril would have been in your grasp.

(You do not think of Huan, his betrayal.)

(How dare he.)

(How _dare_ he, after all you had done for him, after you had fed him from your table, your own hand, after centuries together? He left you for a she-elf who defied you, again and again, when you had reached your hand out in protection. She had sneered at the blood on it, called you a monster, and you had smiled with all your teeth and promised her that there were far worse.)

(She was flinging herself at the mercy of worse, but how she had looked at you-)

The whetstone sings again, the edge of your sword craves flesh.

(No.)

(You were merciful, you had  _wanted_ -)

(And this is what you get, for reaching out with an open hand.)

Her first, now her son, and his blood will water the stones of Doriath as his grandfather’s did before him. Fitting, is it not? That line which so spurned you- you and your brothers both, but they are welcome to claim the slights sitting on their doorsteps themselves- shall end with you. Because of you, and because of their own pride. Yes, you think. It is fitting.  It is just.

You were ever the hunter, in Valinor, but the beasts of Beleriand are different- more foul, more fell. Cleverer. There was once a time when you cried to take a life, but here, you know better; these creatures of Morgoth are not worth your tears, not when they would gut you sooner than look at you. Here, you have hunted Orcs, you have hunted twisted wolves larger than any you have seen, you have shot down great bats from the sky and watched them fall, the thin webs of their wings broken. Here, the hunt comes with greater risk, yet greater reward.

(Once, it was a sacred act, and you would give thanks for the life that sustained your own. But you would not eat half of what you have hunted here, and it is only for does and bucks, or great boars with their jagged tusks, or rabbits fat or lean, that you give thanks as Orom ë once taught you.)

(But now, there is a different price, a different exchange. If you do not kill, they will kill you. You do not need to thank them for dying, you do not need to pay them a respect they would not have for you.)

And here, you do not only hunt beasts. 

The whetstone sings, sharp as your blade.

Your brothers are gathered, waiting. Your soldiers too, though they mutter uneasily amongst themselves. But Dior’s pride- his damnable pride, that you are only too happy to show him the error of, to cut it to bits and make him swallow it-  will be his undoing; it turned them against him. Perhaps it was not so craven, to send those letters, to make it known that you had. You doubt that this is what Maedhros intended; it has more Curvo’s mark to it, and the brother that is closest to you knows how to aim a verbal arrow just as you know how to use your bow. 

Pride was Dior’s mother’s undoing, too, for all that she cast hers away to die with the mortal she so admired.

(It is difficult to find satisfaction in that, but oh, do you try.)

And just so, it was his grandfather’s, and perhaps this is the thing that truly damns him. All the Noldor remember Elu Thingol, and only Arafinw ë ’s line do so fondly. The rest? No, Doriath stood, and his arrogance meant that even had he asked for help, he would not have received it when his lands fell. Not for his refusal to allow any to take refuge, not for his insistence on stripping away as much as he could from those who he cursed as kinslayers.

Yet the Teleri were no kin of  yours ; and if they were, it would be far more distant than the Sinda and Silvan elves that died outside Doriath’s walls. Thingol did not so much as venture forth to cleanse the woods of his realm of the darkness that lurked there. Dior, arrogant, cruel Dior,  has done the same, even without a Girdle of protection. When Doriath falls, his own lands will kill more than you or your brothers would. 

There is good hunting in these woods, you must admit. Grudging. Near all your arrows have found their marks in eyes, throats, chests, as you marched on Doriath, inexorable. Your Oath calls you forth, and who are you to deny it, when this half-Elf holds what is yours by right?

You are your father’s son, and that is the sum of it. Each of his children excelled at what they chose; you know that this was a point of pride for him. Maedhros, in copperwork and politics; Maglor in Song and string; Curvo in creation; Caranthir in weaving and sums; only the Ambarussar had not yet completed their masteries in sculpture and sewing.

And you? You were a hunter, you delighted in the tireless chase, the swift end. You, Maia-chosen, and Maia-betrayed, had the skillset best suited for the butcher’s work that has become your lot in Beleriand. 

You had been taught that there was little glory in senseless death. You had been taught not to relish it, to respect all life that is the Hunt, and all death that it deals. 

But now, as you march through a city that was once fair but is now crumbling, houses on the outskirts deserted, as you catch flesh on your blade and your followers fan out behind you? You are become wanton with it. You glut yourself on the carnage. Blood soaks into cracks in your armor, you do not feel the aches, the scant few blows that land as you fight your way to the palace. You, and your brothers. You cannot be stopped if you are together. You are mighty, glorious, and not even Dior, fair, foolish Dior, will stand in your way.

He is a better swordsman than you would have guessed.

His wife is not.

She falls, and when you meet his eyes across the throne room when his grandfather died, you smile.

(You do not notice your brothers falling behind you. You do not see Caranthir kneeling, clever eyes gone dark, his fingers slack around a sword he had learned to hold if not to love. You do not see the spear that tears out Curvo’s throat, you do not keen from the wound as if it were your own, for your brother closest in your heart, dearest to your soul.)

(You do not see Maedhros, moving deadly- you had forgotten, how dangerous he was. It is not for you to remember, though.  ~~ Not until the Silmaril is in your hands. Not until you are wearing it on your brow just as your father did. ~~ ) 

He snarls at you, curses you for a treacherous wretch, a kinslayer, lower even than Morgoth himself. He curses your oath, the brother he slew, and you-

You will slake your thirst for vengeance upon his blood, you will have what is  _yours_ by right twice over. You spin your sword, once, and Nimloth’s blood splatters on his armor. You smile wider.

You are ready, for this fight. 

You are Celegorm, no longer fair, and you of all your brothers have embraced that.

Your sword meets the neck of a king who is fair beyond measure, a whisper, and-

Pain, blinding red, wicked sharp as you yourself are-

You end with a scream, not a whimper.

You end furious, fighting, blood on your hands and in your hair, and your flame burns as bright as your father’s.

But even his ended.

As do you, your hand still reached out to grasp.


End file.
